Monuments and Memorials

Until yesterday, the past lived behind us,
     Treading through history,
Yearning for the next generation,
      Lording lessons
Taught by men who walked barefoot on mortars
      Seeking imperfect good,
      Dug into trenches, inching:
            Away from tyranny,
            Away from hate,
            Away from oppression,
                  Awkwardly.

Until today, the future lied before us,
      Alternating plain truth
With the brandished inconvenience of
       Hypocrisy
Cloaked in patriotism and parades
      For heroes yet to come,
      Marching Westward until:
           West encroached upon East,
           West circled round,
            West promised destiny,
                  Manifest.

Until tomorrow, presence lingers with us,
      Complicating sure hope
With legitimate disappointment
      In pained failures,
Tempered with unsullied optimism.
      Our obsessive pastime:
      Memorializing Monuments on
           Memorials built upon
           Monuments to our
           Memorials:
                History saluting tomorrow’s
                     Yesterdays:
                             Our gift:
                                   Our present.

A hundred hundred hundreds.

It took for George Washington
And the Continentals, from
            Boston to New York;
From McConkey’s Ferry
            To Trenton
            On Christmas night
In the first year.

Who fought for liberty
And then for Union
            Against secession,
Against abominations,
            Like tariffs
            And human bondage,
In the next first year.

That pile up in looming heaps,
In books of fickle history,
            Away from the birth
In spite of institutions–
            Like freedoms–
            Bought then forgot
In the third first year.
 
A hundred hundred hundreds
Since the first year’s
Celebrations and emendations
            And self-righteous
            Back-patting;
Paid in: 
             Millions of miles marched,
                        From Democracy to Federalism,
             Men lost,
                        In wars at home and distant,
             And words forsaken,
                        On burned and yellowed parchment.
             Two hundreds barely,
                        More or less,
Since the first year.
 
Now tell me about a billion.
Now tell me about a trillion:
A million millions.

Hubris

Unaltered by caprice,
Unaffected by the inconvenience
Of others’ truths.
White-knuckled, clinging
To all the me that shan’t
Have changed since
Change was first conceived:
     Bitten.

Of lore, when North was starred,
The universe earth-centered
And Christ was sinless,
And right was written
On scrolls or tablets
Or parchment or cave walls:
Shadows cast by conquered fire:
     Words.

By Egyptians or Jews, or
By Greeks or Romans, or
By Aztecs or Mayans, or
By French or Americans, or
By Arab Springers:
By God’s own hand
Codified in wisdom:
     Law.

Against all assaults,
Against the world,
Against usurpful progress:
Against Communism,
Against Socialism,
Against tyranny afar,
Against myself:
     War.

Unalterable me, truth-imbued
At the cosmos’ conception:

Before I teamed with Stalin
    Against Hitler and Tojo
Before I made three-fifth’d men
     Whole, invested souls,
Before I heard the liturgy in Latin,
      Against pre-uttered vulgate,
Before I made Earth flat,
     Against the merciless horizon,
Before I burned the Alexandrian library,
     Against demonic lies,
Before I spied the heavens,
     Against unmagnified nearness,
Before I separated day from night
     Against the stagnant backdrop
         Of the unborn
               universe.
 
Before I  voted for it,
     Before I  voted against it.

Before I was Yaweh
Before I was Adam
Before I was Moses
Before I was Jesus
Before I was Muhammad
Before I was Alexander
Before I was Galileo
Before I was Newton
Before I was Blackstone
Before I was Marx
Before I was Jefferson
Before I was Lincoln
Before I was Roosevelt (Eleanor)
Before I was Gandhi
Before I was John Paul two.
 
Before I was atom,
Before I was you:

Constant and unswerving,
Always, already right.